The Missionary Media

Self-righteousness is one of our more annoying characteristics.  It's also one of the most common of them.  Through it we assure ourselves of our own goodness, and are inclined to berate, or preach to, those lacking enlightenment. 

Among us, missionaries must be most convinced they possess the truth; that they know it, the way and the light.  How else explain their propensity to travel throughout the world, sometimes at great trouble, teaching those who aren't like them that they should--indeed must--think like them, act like them and be like them.  I confess I'm not fond of missionaries.

Missionaries are manipulators in the sense that they strive to convince or control others.  They may be well-intentioned manipulators, but they manipulate nonetheless.  We've long known that the various media excel at manipulation for a variety of purposes, some of them considerably less than benign.

I wonder if there are those who, like me, have noticed a certain tendency of those who manufacture commercials, TV shows, movies and other entertainments for us, to teach us that certain people, certain ways of living, are good or at least should considered and treated as well as, and are as good as other people, other ways of life.  These efforts certainly seem well-intentioned, and I have no quarrel with them or what they convey beyond the fact that they seem heavy-handed and are in some sense presumptuous, and appear to arise from a missionary impulse.  In my imagination I picture a gathering of righteous writers, directors, producers, actors, their leader proclaiming "Let us go among them, the unknowing and ignorant, and teach them the Way, oh my brothers and sisters or whatever you think yourselves to be."  Perhaps my imagination is unfair.

The world as portrayed by the Missionary Media is one in which different races, people disabled and not disabled, blissfully and peacefully interact, marry and have children, in which gay men and women smooch and have sex just like straight people and interact with straight people peacefully, marry and have children, and everyone gets along well and are shown to be just the same deep-down as everyone else, no reason to be upset about other folks different from us and what they do or want to do.  The members of the Missionary Media in my perhaps unfair imagination say:  "See?  We're showing that to you on that screen you're gazing at, the same one you gaze at all the time.  You'll get used to it, you'll learn, because we've put it on the screen."

In the case of this particular missionary impulse the effort to make the desired point can be rather blunt.  Subtlety isn't employed.   For example, in a particular scene one person is white, one is black, one is latino, one is apparently of mixed race; some are men, an equal number are women, but all are cops, or lawyers, or  doctors--all are the same, not different.   Two men may suddenly kiss each other.  We may learn suddenly two characters are lesbian.  The children of a lesbian or gay couple are introduced.  Some character is revealed as blind or deaf although there was no guessing that was the case earlier, as they are ostensibly the same as everyone else up to that point.  It's clear due to the lack of subtlety in development and the resultant feeling of surprise that a point is being made that is the purpose of the scene.  

I feel compelled to say, again, that the world being portrayed by the Missionary Media is one that would be fine with me, one in which I'd be happy to live.  But it clearly doesn't exist at this time, any more than the world of Father Knows Best or My Three Sons or Leave it to Beaver existed at the time those shows were popular.  This may change, however.  More significant and more disturbing to me, though, is the fact that the Missionary Media is being missionary.  I don't think it should be.

Members of the Missionary Media include not only those who provide us with commercials and entertainments, but the ubiquitous pundits that infest our society and, most obviously of course, evangelists.  I wish they would all go away.  It isn't their business to tell us their opinions, to convert us, to use entertainments to teach us what they think we should think and do, even when there is nothing objectionable about that or when thinking or doing or acting consistent with their manipulation is good, even admirable.  Why do I complain of this, then, if it would be appropriate for the world to become like that which the media portrays?

Because manipulation is manipulation, and I think the powerful influence of the media shouldn't be employed in manipulation.

Souls for Hire

Elvis Costello composed, and sang, a rather caustic song about the profession I've devoted the majority (I won't say the "best part") of my life to--that of the law.  It bears the same title as this post.  I've thought it a bit too nasty, but wonder now if it isn't quite nasty enough.

The practice of law can be addictive, in a sense.  It requires a kind of critical intelligence, and the application of the intellect has its attractions.  When that application is successful it satisfies something like a craving.  The practice of law can even be admirable, when the stakes and the principles involved are high.  

I don't intend to pontificate regarding the fact that the law and the results of its application can be unjust.  I've long believed the law and morality are distinct and different, and that equating them results only in confusion and the imposition of some values over another, for no better reason than that those values are those held by those making, or applying, the law.

But using the practice of law as a vehicle to avoid or corrupt the law's clear meaning and intent is tantamount to a betrayal of the profession and of the law itself.  The rule of law must be honored if there is to be any law, properly speaking.  There are few more despicable than those who are traitors, and traitors are those who betray that by which they benefit; that which makes them what they are.  

The clearly meritless efforts of those who have sought to overturn the results of the recent presidential election through the courts can only be described as what Elvis Costello referred to in his song as "whoring in the practice of the law."  Those efforts are otherwise inexplicable.  Even lawyers of the most limited comprehension and ability would recognize that the theories which have been propounded in support of those efforts are no more than the legal equivalent of passing gas.  They smell; they reek of stupidity.  They're so obviously insufficient in court that it cannot be maintained that they're brought it good faith, because if that were the case the lawyers propounding them could only be gibbering, drooling idiots or perhaps lunatics.  I'll assume that they're neither one or the other, in which case they're merely malicious and will be as outrageous as anyone would like provided they're well paid for their efforts to satisfy their customers.

I won't defend the virtue of the practice of law, though I'm a lawyer myself and have been one for many years.  Virtue isn't a characteristic of the law or its practice.  Only a person can be virtuous.  But it's nonetheless quite possible for a lawyer to be virtuous, even when practicing law.  It requires only a sense of honor and of the sanctity, so to speak, of the rule of law.  It means that a lawyer won't knowingly seek to undermine that which is clearly legal through the legal system itself.

Because the law recognizes the right of all to a defense in criminal matters, and that this right can only be preserved through competent representation, defendants are represented even when it appears likely they committed a crime.  That's part of the rule of law in this country.  But it's another thing entirely to represent someone or thing in an effort to subvert the law itself.  For a lawyer to represent a client in that case, for a fee, is to sell his/her legal soul.

 

Homo Degeneratus

Most of us will recognize this picture from Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey.  In this scene, one of our distant ancestors or another, encouraged or enlightened courtesy of the seemingly inscrutable monolith, has discovered that a bone may be used as a tool.  As a killing tool in particular.  After killing a tapir and one of his own kind from a different group or tribe, the new prototypical Homo Faber (Man the Tool Maker) celebrates his discovery by tossing the bone into the air, and it becomes through Kubrick's inspiration a tool of a different kind--a space vessel.  So, after that violent beginning, we humans progressed and came to create far more sophisticated tools, according to the movie.

And so we did, and do.  But more than making tools, we have managed now to be "tools" as that word is defined in slang, or in the invaluable Urban Dictionary.  We've become, in other words, jackasses.  We've devolved from being Homo Sapiens.  As it seems our devolution is continuing, we're more properly considered Homo Degeneratus.

What is remarkable is that not only do we devolve, we seem to have no interest in progressing, in being more than we are or better than we are, in thought or deed.  We want to have more than we do and have better than we do, however.  It's a significant distinction.  More money, more and better possessions are desired.  We take that selfishness for granted.  Thinking better and doing better aren't among our goals, though.  Indeed, judging from what we say and do it isn't clear we think we can or should think or do better than we do now.  We resent anything or anyone suggesting we're lacking in any respect when it comes to what we believe or what we want.  We reject anything suggesting that what we believe or want is untrue or unworthy.

How else do we explain what seems to be the widespread belief in absurd conspiracy theories and election fraud which abounds at this time, despite that there is no legitimate evidence supporting that belief?  How do we understand claims being made that fraud must be disproven rather than proven?  Why do so many of us simply assume that claims made are true; particularly, it seems, those made by people who are proven liars?

A possible explanation is that we've become Homo Degeneratus, and are increasingly stupid, dull and bovine as a rule.  So, we're easily led--herded as it were.  We're changing into the stereotypical caveman as portrayed in cartoons. Maybe we're regressing, rapidly, for some reason.  

Another is that we've reached the limits of our ability and/or desire to think and the world around us, indifferent to our incapacity, grows more and more complex and dangerous.  Because we cannot or will not think more than we have, we turn to thoughtless answers and solutions to our problems, in the hope we'll hit on something that works.  The worse things become the more our urge to grasp at even the most idiotic response, provided only that it satisfies our need not to think about what is happening and seems right.

Perhaps we're witnessing denial, as defined in psychology, but on a mass scale.  We simply refuse to acknowledge what takes place if we find it objectionable, unpleasant or threatening.  Certainly we're witness to a particularly gross form of denial at this time in the form of the rejection of the results of the recent election.  Is denial catching?  It might be, in the sense that hysteria is catching and can overcome groups of people, who come to accept an alternate version of reality and, unfortunately, put their delusions into action.

This all raises questions about the fate of representative government in these dark times of instantaneous communication and instantaneous acceptance of whatever is communicated if it is satisfying.  It's been known for sometime that we're all subject to manipulation.  Those in sales and marketing have known this, at least, and profited by it.  Add to it what seems to be a positive revulsion to critical thinking of the kind that infests so many of us, and a legitimate fear of what will become of representative government arises.

If we've become or are becoming a kind of herd, then we may be led.  We may even be led to the slaughter, as are other herds.  Then government becomes a matter of despotism, by one or by a group.  In that case, our best hope lies with the possibility of a benign, knowledgeable despot of the kind longed for by even such as J.S. Mill in his more Coleridge-inspired moments.  Or perhaps an intellectual elite of the kind envisioned by Plato, by which we'll be marched in dull, regulated ranks towards perceived perfection.

Will we come to provide proof for the dreams of elitists, tyrants, autocrats and despots throughout history?  Proof, that is to say, that we're incapable of governing ourselves and must be prodded, even compelled, to accept what those who consider themselves our betters, or divinely inspired, or otherwise destined, think are goals to be reached?  Stay tuned.

 

The Diocese, the Synagogue, the Governor and the Supremes

Much is being made of the Supreme Court's recent decision regarding the State of New York's restriction on attendance at religious services.  I wonder whether that "much" may have something to do with the hyperbolic statements Justice Alito, apparently in a very ideological--or should I say righteous?--mood, made before the Federalist Society.  Those concerned with the possibility of a new conservative majority of the Supremes further broadening the scope of the Establishment Clause may have cause for their concern given Alito's unqualified expression of his fears of government regulation.  But it seems to me this decision is fairly narrow.  It's the fact that there seems to have been no need for the decision to be made that's worthy of note.

The decision doesn't prohibit restrictions on the number of attendees at religious services during the pandemic.  Roughly speaking, it merely provides that the restrictions imposed in this case aren't adequately justified in the law given that restrictions on secular uses are not as stringent.  Such restrictions are subject to strict scrutiny; there must be a compelling reason for their imposition.  According to a majority of the Supremes, there was no such compelling reason.  There is nothing establishing that attendance at religious services is more likely to cause the spread of COVID than attendance at a liquor store or grocery or any of the kinds of secular uses that are less strictly restricted.

It's difficult to be outraged by this.  What is odd, however, is that injunctive relief was sought from the Court during the pendency of an appeal to a Federal Circuit Court, and the restrictions which were imposed are no longer imposed.  Typically, injunctive relief isn't available in the absence of the high probability if not certainty the applicant will suffer irreparable harm if it isn't granted.  Assuming that the inability of a person to attend a religious service will cause irreparable harm, if the restriction claimed unconstitutional is not being imposed, it isn't at all clear that irreparable harm of the kind claimed to exist will actually take place.

This is one of the points made by those Justices dissenting.  They note that if the restrictions are imposed once more, application for injunctive relief may be made at that time.  The majority, however, maintains, for reasons which don't seem to be given, that there is a constant threat they will be imposed and so injunctive relief is needed.  The majority appears to lower the burden imposed on those seeking the extraordinary relief of injunction considerably if what may possibly take place is sufficient grounds for issuance of an injunction.

It would be a matter of concern if that's what intended by the decision, or if that is how it will be construed in the future.  Then protection would arguably be available to anyone who thinks that freedom to worship may be restricted whenever a government may potentially restrict it and has the power to do so.  That would make the prohibition under the Constitution absolute, or provide an opportunity for the imposition of a uniform rule by which restrictions may be judged, instead of the case-by-case approach which has been wisely used in the past.

It occurs to me that activist judges may be conservatives as well as liberals.  An activist is an absolutist, and absolutists aren't thoughtful, careful thinkers--or jurists. 

Chess Play and Obsession

The success and popularity of the Netflix "limited series" The Queen's Gambit reminds me of the surge in interest in the game which took place when Bobby Fischer won the world championship in 1972.  I was a high school team player at that time, and the interest of others in the game was a subject of some fascination to me.  The match between Fischer and Spassky was, incredibly, broadcast live courtesy of public television, with commentary by Shelby Lyman.  I watched that broadcast and, more significantly, others did as well.  The popularity of the match and the game which resulted astonished me.

Chess players--serious chess players, in any case--have been and always are fascinated by the game; one might almost say addicted to it or obsessed with it.  It's necessary to devote a significant amount of time to it to play well, and the amount of time it's necessary to devote to it increases the more one plays and the better one gets, as does the quality of your opponent.  At the highest level, chess is life, as Fischer once said--for him it was in particular, it seems.  It's unclear he had any life apart from it.

Fortunately or unfortunately, I've never reached the highest or indeed the higher levels of play.  I played a great deal in high school, studied the game, and was successful particularly in the last year I participated in scholastic play.  Then I stopped playing, only to begin playing once more much later in life.  I'm now a club player, but haven't been in a tournament in many years.

The star of the Netflix series is addicted to drugs and alcohol, and the implication is her remarkable talent as a chess player is in some manner associated with those addictions and may itself be a kind of addiction.  I think there's something to that.  Chess has long been associated with intelligence.  One derives pleasure from being thought intelligent, and being thought more intelligent than those one defeats at chess.  Pleasure is also felt when winning, and winning at chess is thought to be the result of the fact the winner's intelligence is greater than that of the defeated.  The winner of a chess match is perceived as intellectually superior to his/her opponent.  Fischer used to say that he felt joy in crushing the will of his opponents, or something to that effect.  Such a feeling may well be sought eagerly and would be intense enough to give rise to something like addiction.  

Chess has also been associated with insanity.  Fischer, unfortunately, is a case in point.  The great 19th century player Paul Morphy apparently went mad.  G.K. Chesterton noted that reason, or excessive reasoning, can cause insanity, and pointed to chess players in support of this claim.   Chess has also been associated with evil geniuses.  Intellectual villains are sometime portrayed as being avid players of the game. There seems to be something of the game that attracts and repels us.  It's attractive as an exercise in skill, but we seem troubled by the display of great skill when it is confined to chess play.  We're moralists to an extent.  We think great ability of this kind should be applied to something more wholesome, and of greater benefit to people and the world.  There's something strange and dubious about great chess players.

I have no idea what it is about me that attracts me to the game.  But I think that to be a serious player one must at least have a fairly sizable ego, an ability to focus intensely and an ability to perceive combinations available in a position.  I have those characteristics, to a certain extent.  But a great player must have them to an extraordinary degree.  The ability to focus on the game alone, and nothing else, strikes me as especially important to success over the board.  Fischer, as I noted, said that chess is life, and the lead in the Netflix series says something similar.  I think it was that the chess board is itself a world, and most importantly one that she could control.  Being an orphan and subject to the whims of so many others, it's understandable she would seek out and master a world less cluttered and subject to strict rules. For a great chess player, chess is all-consuming.  Like an addiction to drugs and alcohol, I would think.

"A beautiful game, except for the players"  So says one of the characters in The Bishop Murder Case, one of the works of S.S. Van Dine involving the "detective" Philo Vance, when referring to chess.  The suspects in that book are a chess master and theoretical physicists, one of whom is disabled and fond of children's games.  Strange, unnatural, dangerous people, capable of atrocities. 

A beautiful game nonetheless, though. 

Yes, We Have a Banana (Republic)

The great Louis Prima, best remembered I think for Jump, Jive and Wail, also did a song called Yes, We Have no Bananas.  The latter song may be better known, but is more offensive, as it describes a Greek-American grocer who doesn't like to say "no" telling someone his store doesn't have any bananas.  Louis was himself of Sicilian heritage, and I think should have known better.  Regardless, that song provides the basis for the title to this post.

Certain nations were once--and perhaps still are--referred to as "Banana Republics"; states largely dependent for revenue on one or sometimes a few crops, and in any case limited resources, managed by a plutocracy and sometimes foreign powers (including the U.S.) which regularly experienced changes in government, all to better suit the plutocrats.  They lacked stable politics and stable political institutions, and nobody paid much attention to actual elections, which generally were fixed.  A chain of clothing stores are also called "Banana Republics" because, I believe, the name is thought to invoke tropical, outdoorsy, travel wear.  Those stores are not being referred to, this time, which may or may not disappoint the reader.

I don't think we're a bona fide, if that's an appropriate phrase, banana republic just yet.   We're arguably a plutocracy, true.  But at least in the past, we haven't given the world the impression that our politics and political institutions, and our elections, are all for show, mere facades, and may be denied and ignored.  Things have changed, however.

The outcome of a presidential election was challenged not all that long ago, but that involved a different set of facts entirely.  As far as anyone knows, and based on what evidence there is and has been made available even by those challenging it, there is no basis on which to doubt the 2020 election and its result.  Because there's no legitimate reason to deny the result, but it is being denied nonetheless to the detriment of the nation, we appear to be a banana republic.

Although he's the obvious culprit, we can't blame this mess entirely on the sad, strange, damaged man who lost the election, much as he claims so pathetically to have won it.  His equally sad and strange minions, including those Republicans who have tolerated and facilitated his antics, share in responsibility for this diminishing of America on the world stage.  We can only hope that our Republic will survive him intact.  Unfortunately, if he does indeed suffer from what the DSM used to call Narcissistic Personality Disorder, then it seems likely he will do all he can to create problems for those who have rejected him, which in this case includes the better part of the citizens of our nation.  Being unable to seek retribution against us individually, it makes sense to think he'll seek to do so to the electoral system he believes failed him and to thwart those actually elected by the same system.  

What fascinates and concerns me most in this situation are the craven, venal and self-regarding individuals in power who support him and his efforts to subvert our politics and cast doubt on the electoral process, for no discernable legitimate reason.  I don't think we can assume that these people are all as gullible and deluded as others who seem react to him as members of a cult do to the cult leader.  There must be some other reason which motivates them to encourage him.  It's impossible to believe that they think what he's doing is for the good of the nation.  That would be to consider them to be utterly unintelligent.  So, the reasonable inference is that they act in pursuit of what they think to be their own best interests.

As we're considering the politics of our Glorious Union, this means they're acting in a way they think best preserves or increases the money and power available to them.  One can see that the election of a Democratic president would adversely impact the money and power available to Republican politicians.  So it makes sense to think that they're playing along in the hope that even frivolous challenges to the outcome of the election will ultimately result in some good--for them.

It will be interesting to see how far they'll go in putting their interests before those of the stability and status of the nation.  The cynical view is that they'll go as far as they can without putting their own power, money and interests, and those of their friends, in danger.  Since none of the players appear to be principled and all of them appear to be supremely self-regarding judging from their conduct in the last four years, this is probably the most reasonable view to take.

We should fasten our seatbelts, as Bettie Davis famously said in All about Eve.  We may learn soon just how corrupt our politics and politicians have become.

 

Our Feast of Fools

Welcome, all! Or better, perhaps--Come one, Come all, to America's Feast of Fools!

Based somewhat loosely on the Medieval Feast (or Festival) of Fools--pardon me, Festum Fatuorum--this festival, which is of relatively recent origin, is formally held on the date of every presidential election, but the festivities are known to extend for several days after voting has taken place.  While the Medieval Feast celebrated the election of a mock Pope or Archbishop, we here in the United States celebrate the election of a mock President.

Most of us are familiar enough with the original Feast, having seen it animated in Disney's strangely disturbing Hunchback of Notre Dame.  The most ridiculous or grotesque person available was made Pope/Archbishop, and all joined in laughing at that figure while purportedly offering it reverence.  Liturgical and religious ceremony was parodied.  It shared certain characteristics with the Roman Saturnalia.  We in the U.S. similarly elect some absurd personage as president and ape the ceremonies of a democracy or republic.  Here, though, we don't laugh at the Feast.  Instead, or so I suspect, we're laughed at by the rest of the world.

What a spectacle we must make on the world stage.  I have a vague recollection of claims of American exceptionalism; the belief that we were favored in our form of government, our republic, our institutions, which allowed for the expression of the "will of the people" but protected the voice of the minority, and the peaceful transfer of power, the rule of law, etc., and our pride in our good fortune in being so enlightened.  Now we seem to be no more fortunate and no greater in this respect than most other nations.  No doubt there are those who enjoy how America, the (High and) Mighty, has fallen.  

Ostensibly at least, our politics, though driven in most cases by the pursuit and use of money uber alles, has managed to honor the election process.  There have been very few cases where the process has been subject to challenge, and claims of fraud were seldom made.  Those who lose have acknowledged losing more or less gracefully.  Things have changed, though.  Now we have those who are against votes and voting itself if their interests are are not met, and if they fail to retain their positions due to the election process.  Most of all depressing is the fact that a large portion of the electorate isn't disturbed by this and even joins in the rejection of votes and of the right to vote.  

Why has a change of this magnitude taken place?  I've pondered the use or misuse of the Internet before and have worried about its negative impact, and hate to sound like the proverbial broken record, but I think that it provides a means by which the ignorant, the misinformed, the authoritarian, the hateful, the bigoted--in short, those who are unwilling to accept anything they don't understand or perceive to be contrary to themselves and their interests, whether or not it is achieved legally or is not illegal--may communicate and coordinate, may plan, may indoctrinate, may foster discontent and act on it.  In a world in which any person may communicate anything without real effort and find those who share their feelings and support them, and where verification and careful, critical thought is discouraged, many dangerous people will thrive and their ranks will swell.  Manipulation of thought and feelings will be easy.  It's certain that manipulation is taking place.

Curiously, though communication of information and opinion is easy and widespread, ignorance and misunderstanding increases as a consequence.  Contrary information and opinion is available, but one won't become aware of it unless it's sought out.  It can be ignored.  One need not learn anything unless there is a desire to learn.  There is no desire to learn, however, where there is no reason to and prejudice and ignorance is encouraged by a host of others of like minds (if that word can be used) who reinforce accepted views.

Be careful out there.  Zombies of a kind actually do exist and thrive.  They don't eat brains, perhaps, but they don't think they need them, nor do they want to use them.

A Most Unhappy Halloween

Halloween is particularly well placed in the calendar this year, shorn of its festive cloak due to what the Pontifex Maximus, for reasons unclear to me, referred to as "the lady" Covid.  Perhaps ladies are generally pestilent to the Catholic clergy--except, of course, for one Lady in particular.  Barely festive at all, in fact, for the children who benefit from the holiday in its largely secular form.

But what could be more appropriate at this very unfestive time?  Fear stalks the land in the form of someone as orange as a pumpkin, though not great in any good sense, along with the pandemic which seems to be growing.  Fear fostered by many for the most cynical reasons.  By politicians, that is to say, or at least those of them who are motivated primarily is not exclusively by the desire to retain power.  Fear also of uncertainty.  Fear of people wielding guns at polling places; fear of what might come of a Supreme Court whose latest member has minimal experience in law and seems to have been chosen for purely political reasons; fear of violence; fear of fraud in the election; fear that voting will be repressed.

Yes, Halloween will be scary this year if only due to the harrowing and hectoring political advertising to which we're exposed and the proximity to election day, which may or may not decide our fate, or which may or may not merely prolong the period in which we wait to know our fate depending on what options are available in the courts (I won't call them "legal" options for fear--what else?--of giving them more dignity than they merit).

Unfortunately, we can't take comfort in the wise, gentle and humorous traditions of this time of year, like the celebrations associated with the Day of the Dead.  There our deceased loved ones are thought of as still living and parts of our continuing families.  But imagine what our ancestors would feel if they could truly share our time with us.  They could only be angry of what we've become, or full of sorrow for us in our sorry state.  As for the saints of All Saints Day?  Well, perhaps they could at least intercede for us, assuming they would be heard.

Perhaps a mass exorcism is in order.  Priests brandishing the Rituale Romanum and reciting its text on exorcism should be walking among us, or perhaps driving among us in vehicles sporting loudspeakers, together with fundamentalist preachers casting out devils as some of them do on television.  Why not give it a try?  What do we have to lose?  Certainly not our dignity, which is long gone.

Jonathan Swift's Gulliver, in one of his travels, encounters the Houyhnhnms, a race of talking horses, wise, reasonable, and benevolent who rule over deformed, ignorant creatures resembling humans called Yahoos.  Though taken in, he's eventually banned by the Houyhnhnms for being too much like a Yahoo, or even a Yahoo himself.  He despises Yahoos, though, and when he returns to England can't stand living among his fellow humans.  He becomes a recluse, and spends his time in the stables talking to the horses.

He also more famously encounters the Lilliputians, a tiny people who are concerned with trivial matters and are obsessed with displays of authority and power.

I'm not certain whether we're more Yahoos or Lilliputians, now.  A combination of the two, perhaps.  If we could celebrate Halloween traditionally, we should dress up as both.  Or it may be no costumes would be required.

 

The Allure of the '50s

An organization previously unknown to me called the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI)  issued a report in 2016 on the views of Americans regarding, roughly speaking, whether American Society has changed for the better, or for the worse, since the 1950s.  According to the report, most would say it's changed for the worse.  A majority of the majority were white, Christian and Republican.  Perhaps that goes without saying.

What is it about the '50s that makes most of us, apparently, think it better than what's been the case for the last 70 years?  An argument can be made that the '50s were white, Christian and Republican, at least on the surface and as the country was portrayed in the media.  It was also for many of us Baby Boomers the time we spent as children.  There are many Boomers, after all, and some of us look back on our childhood with nostalgia.

It was a time when televisions began, and continued to, appear in the homes of the middle and upper classes, and the America portrayed in the medium was beneficent indeed.  America fought evil then, successfully.  Whether in the Old West as shown in The Lone Ranger and Gunsmoke, fancifully as in Superman, through law enforcement as in The Untouchables, Dragnet and Highway Patrol, America and Americans promoted "Truth, Justice and the American Way" as stated in the introduction to Superman.

American families on TV were genial, sometimes comic, but always loving.  Their problems were reassuringly mundane, and resolved.  American women were sometimes ditzy, sometimes wise, but almost always motherly and beautiful when part of a family.  In other contexts they might be femme fatales who were beautiful but bad.  Even in that case, though, chances were excellent they had hearts of gold and had been led astray by bad men.  American men were generally brave, sometimes fatherly, sometimes rich, sometimes befuddled and comic, sometimes poor, always patriots and on the side of good unless crooks or spies in place to be bested.

Economically, times were generally good.  America had come out relatively well, economically, from the Second World War, in comparison with a great part of the world.  One can understand that many would feel content, even smug, in light of American prosperity.  Militarily, it seemed for a time at least that America was predominant.

But the Korean War didn't end nearly as well.  And the Soviet Union got the bomb, and put a satellite in space, and the communist scare began.  The '50s were the heyday of McCarthyism.  Not all was well, but the Red scare served to highlight the fact that America was good, communism bad.  So in a way the vision of goodness and the tendency towards self-righteousness were enhanced by America's problems in that time.

Nor did TV and other media uniformly portray our society as prosperous and benign.  There were stirrings of disappointment if not discontent.  The writers, musicians and poets of the Beat Generation were different from most of that time.  There were some shows, like The Twilight Zone, which raised questions about American society.  But that was late '50s, when things had begun to change, slowly.

Perhaps the Boomers who grew up watching Looney Toons, Kukla, Fran and Ollie and Howdy Doody became disillusioned in the 1960s and 1970s with the American Dream as it was dreamed by them in the '50s.  Perhaps they recognized that it was a dream.  Or, perhaps they felt that they had been betrayed somehow, by someone.  Not all was as clear as it was in the '50s, nor were they treated with the kindness and love they felt their due; they weren't entertained as they were in the past.   All the gunfights we saw on TV didn't make the Vietnam War less bloody or more understandable.  So the '50s at some point came to be mocked by the Boomers it created.  It was their parents' time; they weren't children any more.

But something happened as we grew old.  We want to be children again.  We look back beyond the '60s as we grow satisfied and content, but at the same time cautious and fearful.  Perhaps we even grow senile, in a way--culturally and politically.  Our second childhood reminds us of our first.  We find that our first was infinitely better.  Many of us find it more peculiarly American.  More particularly American in a particular way.

Whatever it was back then, those of us who were children at that time remember what we experienced as children, and for some and perhaps most of us what we experienced was what we saw on TV or as a result of efforts to mimic what we saw.  Suburbs, vacations, big cars, sports, highways, diners, drive-ins, rock and roll, country clubs, good food, money, good and evil easily distinguished and evil always vanquished.  Why can't it be like that again?

Ask those who think we've changed for the worst.  They'll tell you.  I think one of the things they'll tell you, unfortunately, is that what they see now isn't what they were shown on TV then.  More specifically, that the people they see now aren't the people they saw on TV then.

Goin' Courtin

There are nine Justices of the Supreme Court of our Glorious Union, not seven as there are brides and brothers in Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, a genial if odd musical which includes a song the title of which serves as the title to this post.  It's hard for me not to feel some fondness for a musical which includes a song and dance about "The Sobbin' Women" even if it serves as a reminder that rape is what's being portrayed as something charming for our entertainment.

But this post, alas, isn't a tribute to that strange product of the American imagination.  Instead it is not a tribute to what's taking place now, during a very strange election--the strange appointment of someone to the highest court of the land.

These shows (and they have been shows for quite some time now) are not entertainments, though they seem to entertain some.  They're more shows in the sense that show trials are trials.  All know the outcome, so what becomes of significance is the quality or lack of quality of the performances of those called upon to play the parts assigned.  Those opposing the appointment are limited to strenuously displaying their disapproval and the reasons for it.  Those supporting the appointment are required to justify their support, enthusiastically.

Certain things are expected of the nominee.  Answers to questions are to be vague, particularly when it comes to matters of importance, when answers are given.  Answers are to be avoided if possible.  The actual opinions of the nominee on certain issues are not to be sought.  One can't ask questions directed to religious beliefs, sexual preferences, or politics for example.  Nothing of importance is subject to inquiry, except perhaps professional qualifications, which it seems concern nobody.  One can note certain things about the nominee, and make inferences about them.  Rarely is there more involved in the process, unless there is a direct accusation of some misconduct, in which case the show becomes even more of a show as the performances take on a melodramatic character.

Where professional qualifications are concerned, it appears the current nominee is well suited to be what she has been for the most part--a professor.  She didn't practice law much at all.  She's been a federal appeals judge for three years.  I argued before the 7th Circuit in 2018, and for all I know she may have been on the panel hearing arguments that day.  I can't recall.  She clerked for judges.

My personal feeling is that a judge of an appellate court, and so a Supreme Court Justice, benefit immensely from having been a practicing lawyer, or a judge, for quite some time.  They should have some sense of what actually takes place in a courtroom, and what's involved in representing clients in civil or criminal practice.  They should have observed what the law and what courts do to actual people, what it's like to be a part of the legal system and to encounter it.

Ambrose Bierce described litigation as a machine which you enter as a pig and leave as a sausage.  It's something that should be experienced by those who sit in judgment of litigants and lower courts if they are to have any grasp of the law as it functions, not merely as an abstraction--in practice, not merely in theory.

There can be no question where her sympathies lie.  It would be naive not to expect her personal preferences on great issues to influence her decisions.  The only hope is that in her case and in others there is such a respect for the law that personal preferences will be restrained to the extent that what is the law won't be confused with what is believed should be the case.  The law is the law, not morality, not religion, not politics, not ideology.  If what I read of her religious preference (you know, like sexual preference) is accurate, and she identifies (I can't stop myself, it seems) as a charismatic, pentecostal Christian, it can be hoped that she'll seek inspiration when it comes to decisions of the court from the law rather than anything else.

The world we live in, though, doesn't encourage optimism in this respect.  It doesn't encourage optimism in general, in fact, as it encourages thoughtlessness and quick, emotional responses to any problem.

 

Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin

According to the Book of Daniel, Belshazzar, King of Babylon, was enjoying a feast with his friends and courtiers using implements taken from the Temple of Solomon when he was surprised to see a hand, attached to no visible body, scribbling the words of the title to this post on a nearby wall.  As these tales usually go, all else failing one of the captive Jews, the Prophet Daniel, was summoned to explain the writing and the words (I see "parsin" used for "upharsin" sometimes).  As one might expect, Daniel informed the King that the hand was that of God, and the writing informed those interested that Belshazzar and his kingdom had been weighed and assessed, and their days counted, and they would soon come to an end.  And so they did eventually, courtesy of Cyrus the Great and his Medes and Persians.

This is the famous "Writing on the Wall."  When you see that writing, you know it will soon all be over for yourself and other persons and things.

Did we see the "writing on the wall" last night, in a presidential debate which it may be said will live in infamy like Pearl Harbor Day?  For our Great Republic and for some if not all of us as its citizens?

No ghostly, or godly, hand or writing appeared, but much else did, none of it worthy, all of it unworthy.  In fairness, it may be noted that efforts were made by the moderator and one of the participants in the debate (or what passes as a debate here) to act with a certain dignity of the kind which should attend these proceedings.  But the other participant acted with no dignity whatsoever and with a clear intent sought to deprive the debate of any usefulness or merit, assuring it would be merely unseemly and chaotic.  Much as he is, it's sad to say.  His pandering to adherents of white supremacy was more than unseemly, of course, but that is part of his character, such as it is.

Recent political debates here have not been impressive as a rule.  We haven't seen and apparently will never again see the likes of such debates as those engaged in by Lincoln and Douglas, for example.  However, it has at least been possible for participants in a debate to state, if not explain, their positions on matters of import, and to appear as if they were adults worthy of a minimum amount of respect, credible if not especially intelligent or honorable representatives of their constituents.

In this case, though, it was as if the rules that govern responsible and intelligent public conduct among adults had been forsaken, and we were spectators, on a global scale, of a dispute taking place on a playground among elementary school level contestants.  This is our politics, now; these are our politicians; this is the picture we present to the world.  It's a picture than must delight some, given the American tendency to pontificate regarding morals and conduct.

We must expect that Republicans, who it seems have become the most craven and appeasing of our politicians, will at most say nothing at all about the conduct of the candidate of their party.  It must be expected as well that what the media delights in calling the president's "base" will tolerate and even applaud his latest caperings.  Unfortunately, we've come to expect and even hope that disagreements among us appear to be bar-fights or exhibitions of chest-pounding.  We're now convinced that life is what it's portrayed to be in TV, movies and video games, or at least should be that.  It's no surprise that professional wrestling is so popular in our Glorious Union.

What, if anything, has been written on our wall?  Not necessarily the end of our nation.  But it may be the end of pretensions to being a civilized, superior, nation.  If we're willing if not eager to have our leaders engage in spectacles of this kind, or to have leaders who are incapable of acting any other way than with a thoughtless and crude belligerence in public forums in which important issues are supposed to be addressed, than we've become brutal.  We have no basis on which we can claim to teach or lead the world.  The days of our preeminence in world affairs, of being a force for the good of humanity, have been counted, I'm afraid.  In that respect, at least, we are being found wanting.

 

Welcome to the Fifth Circle

The Fifth Circle of Hell as described in Dante's cheery Divine Comedy is populated by the wrathful, those condemned by their indulgence in the sin of Anger, broadly speaking.  Anger expressed, and Anger repressed.  Those souls condemned for the expression of Anger spend their unending time fighting each other near the surface of the river Styx, or the mud or marsh associated with that river.  Those that are condemned for the repression of Anger, the sullen, are lodged farther beneath the surface, complaining or perhaps better yet stewing at the bottom of the fiery mud and water.  Their complaints appear as bubbles on the surface.

It seems we're in the Fifth Circle of our own peculiar hell.  Medusa and the Furies may not be in evidence as they we're in Dante, but we have plenty of figures that resemble them among us.  

We're possessed by a curious anger, I would say.  At least some of us are.  For a president to refuse to accept the outcome of an election before it takes place, should it go against him, is obviously unprecedented in our Great Republic.  Therefore, it's also unprecedented that this fact seemingly leaves many of us unconcerned.  Our commitment to representative government as well as the rule of law is questionable.  We've heard of such doings in the past in connection with other nations, called "banana republics."  Have we become one?  Ben Franklin famously said we have a republic, if we can keep it.  Perhaps we no longer can, or no longer want one.

If so, how and why did this transformation take place?  One tires of comparisons with the Roman Empire, but are the satires of Juvenal, coming as they did after the Roman Republic was replaced by the Roman Empire, suggestive?

The People who once upon a time handed out military command, high civil office, legions...everything, now restrains itself and anxiously hopes for just two things: bread and circuses.

 Or perhaps Cicero is more apropos:

The evil was not bread and circuses, per se, but in the willingness of the people to sell their rights as free men for full bellies for the excitement of the games which would serve to distract them from the other human hungers which bread and circuses can never achieve.

The consuls and the Senate handed out just about everything in the Roman Republic, except when a dictator was appointed, and not the "people" as we would understand that word, so Juvenal may be said to exaggerate.  Also, the real people may have been more concerned with their bellies then than now.  But we love entertainment as much if not more than the people of Rome did, although they were less adverse to the sight of blood and death than we are, as a rule, except as portrayed in TV and movies and, of course, video games.  And, if the "bread" referred to by these ancient writers is thought of broadly as securing continued life, in a more or less comfortable condition, I think there is something analogous involved.

Personal security and self-satisfaction seem of particular concern to us now.  Provided we're not interfered with, called upon to do things we need not do (particularly for others), and are reassured with some frequency that our way of life is proper and indeed admirable, we're content.  We're perfectly happy if someone else makes the important decisions.  It bothers many of us not at all.  We resent having to make such decisions and, worse yet, having to think about what's involved in making them.

We particularly resent any implication that we can or should be better than we are or that there are others less fortunate than we are, who should be given assistance.  That makes us very angry.  We fear the less fortunate, and being selfish we are suspicious that that they're selfish too, and so envy us and wish us harm.  We want security, sameness and salvation from the perceived evils of others and the world at large.  We want a leader who thinks as we do, and will protect us from those who don't.

Comfort in Frustration

I think of this quote of Schiller's from time to time.  Now is such a time, as the great, tawdry and tiresome spectacle of a presidential election is interminably played out before us in all its squalid splendor.

There's something unseemly in every election here in our Glorious Union, and I suspect elsewhere.  It comes from the fact that all politicians must whore themselves out in several ways to obtain the dubious distinction of election.  Having been elected, they'll exchange favors for money required to seek reelection and then, again, engage in the posturing needed to convince people to cast their votes so they may continue to pursue corruption.

But even the cynical must acknowledge that this particular election is special; worthy of note as a spectacle remarkable among the spectacularly sad mummery that makes up our politics.  Never has stupidity played such a significant role, though it's always an important factor in the choices we collectively make.

I don't speak specifically of the stupidity of the contestants, though I think that of one of them is profound, and that of the other is more in the nature of a habit acquired by any politician of long standing who must perforce exercise what intelligence he/she possesses narrowly and for a limited purpose.  I speak of our stupidity,  i.e. that of the electors.

I find it difficult to explain what seems to be the ubiquity of stupidity in these times.  The disregard and suspicion of scientific and medical knowledge, the fundamentalist, literalist nature of religious belief, the astonishing resurgence of belief in a "flat earth", the acceptance of the almost laughable conspiracy theories promoted by such as Qanon, the widespread belief in obvious lies and liars, are remarkable in the 21st century.  

How is it possible for us collectively to make an intelligent decision on any significant matter when we're so overwhelmed by what appears to be a determination and perhaps even a compulsion not to think?

Is this extraordinary indulgence in gullibility an especially American trait, or is it taking place elsewhere as well?

Is Schiller right?  If so, perhaps we can take some comfort in the fact that even divinities have no recourse, and are helpless when confronting the stupidity of humanity.  What must their frustration be given their omnipotence?  How can our frustration compare to theirs?

The stupidity of others is largely beyond our control, but even a Stoic can't be indifferent to, and must marvel at, stupidity at large, and is reduced to trying to limit personal stupidity.  The gods clearly are of no help if Schiller is correct.  

 

Fear, Lies and the Liar

"Fear is an idiot" according to Ambrose Bierce.  As I recall, his point was that fear is unintelligent, indeed stupid in the extreme.  Fear cannot think, according to Bierce; it has no brain.  Thus, when possessed by fear (the equivalent in some ways to being possessed by a demon) a person has no brain, doesn't think--cannot think, in fact.

Bierce was treating Fear as if it was a person, or being of some kind, to which human attributes may be ascribed.  In the same fashion and for the same purpose, we may say that Fear is a liar.

How could it be otherwise if Fear is an idiot, incapable of thought?  Fear can't speak the truth as it can't know the truth. Ascertaining what is true in a particular case requires inquiry into a situation.  As C.S. Peirce and John Dewey would say, inquiry is appropriate and effective when there is a problem to be solved, i.e. when we're confronted with something uncertain, unclear, confusing.  Inquiry doesn't arise, though, when interpretation of circumstances is preconceived or predetermined.  Then analysis of a situation becomes a kind of special pleading.  What seems to be uncertain isn't construed as uncertain.  Instead, the situation is deemed to be an instance of X or Y, and efforts are made to make the circumstances conform to the assumption made without taking them into account in any meaningful way.

H.L. Mencken wrote that to a government, the most dangerous person (he said "man," actually) is someone who can think things out without regard to the prevailing superstition.  That may be true.  But in these strange times, who is there who can think things out, let alone think at all?

Lies are ubiquitous now.  Social media and some traditional media are full of them.  Some lies are made with the intent to confuse or promote fear.  Some lies are merely circulated, as instantly as they're made, by those who believe them.  Some merely misstate the facts.  But it seems that lies are believed more and more as more and more lies are made and spread across the World Wide Web, and repeated again and again.

We live in a propagandist's paradise.  Joseph Goebbels would be amazed by the possibilities available, and enthralled by the opportunities presented.  It's so very easy to lie, easier still to spread the lie, now.

Which brings us back to Fear.  There are many liars and so there is much fear.  We have a president who according to available evidence lies virtually every instant.  This is unusual even in a politician.  

Fear is here, and is as ubiquitous as are lies.  Fear of the new, fear of the strange, fear of change, primarily; fear of violence, fear of division, fear of displacement, fear of others unlike ourselves.  Fear the liar takes advantage of Fear the idiot.  Fear the idiot accepts the lies of Fear the liar, without reservation. Fear the liar incites Fear the idiot to thoughtless reaction and to a thoughtless desire to be free from fear and thought, or the need for thinking.

 

The "Principleless" Platform of a Platformless Party

     

Brevity can be a desirable thing in American politics.  A political speech that is brief and to the point would be admirable, for example.  And as everything in a political campaign in our Great Republic seems endless, repetitive and squalid, it's understandable that any curtailment of the process seems prima facie desirable.

But alas, the Resolution adopted by the Republican Party at its convention this year, though blessedly brief, isn't remarkable for its brevity.  It would be possible, though unusual, for principles of a party or candidate to be stated succinctly.  It's remarkable because it states no principles of any kind.  Indeed, it doesn't even try to do so.  In fact, its language seems to express a kind of delight or relief that no principles need be identified, and concludes with a stern statement to the effect that no effort to formulate or promulgate any principles will be tolerated.  So perhaps there were some Republicans who felt it was important that the party at least seem to endorse principles and were being told that wouldn't happen.

Only a portion of the resolvedly unprincipled Resolution is shown above.  Most of the rest of it consists of claims that the fact that the Resolution contains no principles should not be taken to reflect adversely on the Republican Party and that it is wrong for anyone to to suggest that it does.  But the Resolution also states, more than once, that the Republican Party is united in support of the president.

This is most appropriate.  As close members of his family and others have noted, the president has no principles.  It's entirely fitting that a political party which eschews principles, or at least the expression of them, would support a person who is manifestly unprincipled.  

It's amazing, however, that a political party would flaunt its insistence that no principles may be espoused by it.  The rule is that in politics as in advertising appearance is significant, not substance.  So the expectation would be that a party, a politician and a candidate will at least pretend to be principled, pretend to stand for something, with varying degrees of sincerity or success.  But the Republican Party is so blithe in its dismissal of any effort to adopt a set of principles for this election that it's clear it has decided its failure to do so isn't a matter of concern.  Oddly, it doesn't even incorporate the prior election's platform, but merely mentions that there's no need to prepare another.

Does this mean that it has chosen to be honest about the fact that statements of political principles are meaningless, and generally disregarded, and so their preparation a wasted effort? There are portions of the Resolution which suggests that is the case.  That would certainly be extraordinary, particularly of a party which is moralistic and self-righteous to an extreme.  It has a long history of generating platitudes.  You'd think it would be an easy thing to resurrect those used in the past, or prepare new ones adequate to the task.  Probably, this is merely an effort to contend that it doesn't really matter whether it has a platform or not, in the end.

And that strikes me as an expression of profound resignation, if not cynicism; an acceptance of the relegation of a party to the whims of a single, self-obsessed person.  It's as if Republicans were saying "Screw it.  Principles?  A platform?  Come on!"

But it's hard to think that there is such a level of self-evaluation at work.  It's more likely, I believe, that the majority of the voting members of the party understand that the electors, or at least those who will vote Republican, don't care what principles are adopted or appear to be adopted.  Their cultish devotion to the president is such that they need have no reason to support him or those that facilitate his caperings.  

As a result, there's a concern that restating or reformulating the traditional principles of the party would merely make it, and them, look silly.  Whatever devotion there was to those principles has disappeared.  The Republican Party, as it now exists, supports the president because it has nothing else to support.  His largely incoherent ramblings and bizarre conduct have little to do with the nation or the best interests of its citizens.  The party knows this.  The members of the party are so craven that they don't wish to risk his displeasure by seeming to believe that he should concern himself with such things, instead of himself.  That's something he will not do, and he would resent anyone who tells him he should.

But it may be the case that most of the party has come to accept that principles are inconvenient in any event.  The less thought about them the better in this age of diminished people, things and ideas.

The Sad End of Napoleon Bonaparte

It's arguable that Napoleon Bonaparte was the most able person who ever lived.  

All know he was a military genius.  But I refer to his ability generally; of what it was about him that distinguished him from others in terms of talents, not merely what made him a great general.

By all accounts, his memory was vast.  He could recognize people he had met years previously and recall the circumstances of their meeting in detail. I'm not sure whether he had what's called  "photographic memory" but what he read in reports and correspondence he didn't forget, sometimes much to the chagrin of those that prepared or were mentioned in the reports.

He could focus on matters which were presented to him for decision intensely, and without being distracted by anything else.  He compared his mind to a cupboard:  "Different subjects and different affairs are arranged in my head as in a cupboard.  When I wish to interrupt one train of thought, I shut that drawer and open another.  Do I wish to sleep?  I simply shut all the drawers and there I am--asleep." This intensity of directed thought to a problem must have been of great advantage to him.

He could also, however, manage while doing one thing, regardless of its significance and complexity, to address other things, sometimes minutia.  It seems that micromanagement for him was not a liability, but something easily achieved, and that he excelled at it.  He had enormous energy, and worked extremely hard.  He would dictate on different matters to several writers at the same time.  Those who worked with him found themselves exhausted when he was still eager to continue.  What he could accomplish and the speed in which he accomplished it amazed people.  He apparently slept for no more than 4 hours a day.  While dressing after sleeping he would sometimes tear his own clothing in his impatience to go about his day.

It was apparently this eruption of nervous energy which led him to indulge in long, hot baths--the only thing known to relax him.

He could also charm just about anyone.  He inspired real devotion in his soldiers and in others.  

He had all the qualities which could, and did in most cases, make him a superb chief executive of a nation and military commander.  He was remarkable.  B.H. Liddell-Hart, in his book Strategy, wrote that he thought generals like Napoleon and Frederick the Great had the advantage over other great captains because they were also chiefs of state.  What he overlooked, I think, is that at least in the case of Napoleon he was always highly involved in affairs of state, not just on the battles, even when on the battlefield or in his campaigns.  Running a state and leading an army at the same time would, to me, be more challenging than leading an army.

He died when 51 years old, exiled to the island of St. Helena in the middle of the Atlantic ocean, months travel from anywhere else on the Earth.  He lived there for 6 years, closely watched and guarded in isolation.  

It would have been a dreary exile for someone who had so much energy, let alone someone who had ruled Europe for years.  It seems that for a time he was as active as he could be on St. Helena, riding and walking about the island, preparing his memoirs.  He visited and had visitors.  Then, especially after Sir Hudson Lowe arrived at the island to take on the duties of governor, he gradually stopped doing most anything at all.  Sometimes the old energy would return, and he would take on the role of master gardener or landscape artist, laying the foundation for the lovely gardens which still grace the area around Longwood House.  But for the most part, his life became grim and boring, always seeing and interacting with the same small set of people, cooped up in a damp house on a damp, windy plain.  He spent more and more time in his small bedroom on one of the two camp beds that he brought with him to the island.

The English seemed to have chosen for him a place and style of exile which was the most painful available for someone of his characteristics.  They clearly had enough of him, as had all of Europe, and his escape from prior exile on the island of Elba no doubt made them wary of putting him anywhere close to that continent.  But the place, together with the petty and seemingly meaningless restrictions placed on him when escape was nearly inconceivable strikes one as cruel, or perhaps mere reckless indifference combined with spite.

A cruel end for such a man.  He nonetheless managed in combination with those exiled with him to create a glorious legend which survives to this day; the new Prometheus.  He was right to say that his jailors would be known to history only because of their treatment of him.  Was that his greatest achievement?

I can't help but wonder if it would have been possible for him to be more the First Consul, recreating the French nation from the ruins of the Revolution, and less the Emperor.  Then he may have remained a wondrously capable creator rather than a destroyer. But would he have been able to refrain from war?  Was war pushed upon him in some cases at least, and could he have devoted himself to civil pursuits only?  What would he have achieved then?  Was the world deprived of his extraordinary ability by circumstances or did he himself choose to devote them to his own glory?  He was certainly careful of his own glory.  He is compared by some to a condottiere, and to an extent was similar to the leaders of the Medicis, Sforzas and Borgias in their promotion of their families (which he came to regret) but I think he was more "entirely out of Plutarch" as was said of him by Paoli.

It's regrettable that he didn't address these questions while stuck on his rock in the middle of the ocean.  

Occult and a Cult

"Occult" when used as an adjective means closed, concealed, shut off from view.  As such it may refer to something mysterious, and so we see alchemy, for example, referred to as an occult art or science.  Above are pictured a set of symbols used by alchemists.  "The occult" is used to refer to something supernatural or unnatural.

A "cult" is used to refer to a group of people having certain beliefs and engaging in certain practices considered strange and generally sinister.  A cult is sometimes religious.  At times, "cult" may refer merely to a group which seems unusually, or even irrationally, attached to someone or something; a devotion which is extreme in context, as when devotion is to an individual not properly subject to worship in a religious sense.

One can see a similarity in the two words when something in the nature of religious devotion, beliefs or practices are involved, as religions may involve hidden things, i.e. things known only to initiates.  Although it may seem odd, occult may be used, legitimately I think, when used to refer to the secret practices or rituals of associations such as the Freemasons, although they are nominally not religious.  They are closed to people who aren't members.  Calling such associations "a cult" seems not entirely appropriate, though I've no doubt some consider them such.  But in these secular times, it seems to me that for all their ceremony and, it seems, exotic vestments, these associations are devoted primarily to benefiting their members in one way or another that promotes power, wealth and status and, presumably, fellowship.  I'm sure that in some cases they may even benefit non-members, and assorted "worthy causes."

A particular variety of cult is called a "cult of personality."  That's described by Merriam-Webster Online as "a situation in which a public figure (such as a political leader) is deliberately presented to the people of a country as a great person who should be admired or loved." It's unclear to me how a cult can be a situation.  It seems to me to be more proper to identify those who accept what's presented in such a situation as members of a cult, or "cultists" and the situation to be "cultish" if there is such a word.  But I think most of us know what's intended by the phrase.

Cults of personality have seemed to become more and more common as the means by

which a person may be presented as great, or worthy of devotion or love, became more sophisticated and the message and intent more easily and generally communicated.  There's no doubt that propaganda has been used for centuries to generate support for people, ideas and causes, but in a cult of personality it seems a prerequisite that a person be what is presented as an object of devotion (as opposed to an idea or doctrine, for example).  It also seems not to be a prerequisite that the person be great in fact, or worthy of devotion at all because of his/her talents, abilities or qualities as an individual.  That person may be altogether average, or the scum of the earth, or a psychotic or sociopath.

That cults of personality may be created or fostered regarding such people is a testimony to the efficiency of methods by which they may be presented as worthy of devotion, and those methods have become mighty indeed given the technology available to those making the presentation.  Unfortunately, it's also a testimony to the stupidity and gullibility of those who are members of such a cult.

Or is there something else involved?  Why were the majority of the people of Germany willing to follow Hitler to the terrible end has been a subject of speculation since the end of the Second World War.  So has the question why Mussolini was successful in Italy, a nation not known to harbor martial ambitions and not particularly nationalistic, being, some would say, fragment into regions having their own cultures and dialects.

I'm inclined to think that cults of personality, particularly in politics, derive from the serious and sometimes overwhelming fears and frustrations of a group of people, and the desire that those fears and frustrations disappear, but quickly, easily and simply, and through the efforts of others, without concern or thought regarding how they're removed and who they're removed by.  Members of a cult of personality act viscerally, not rationally.  They believe they're right and that those who don't believe like them are wrong and must be dealt with, by most any means.

When you think of it, there actually is something hidden in such cults, and they may be called occult as a result.  What's hidden, though, isn't something which is disclosed or known to initiates, or even thought about, and results from a deliberate blindness--the faults of the person that is the subject of the cult, and the reasonableness and humanity of those who oppose that person.  Ultimately, members of such a cult simply don't care about such things.  Nor, probably, do they think about them, as especially when it comes to serious and complicated issues which make us anxious, we prefer not to think at all.